Corps Calling: Baby boomers going overseas to volunteer

• Basic requirements: 18 or older, with no upper age limit, and a U.S. citizen. Life experience counts.

• Commitment: Two years

• Pay: Stipend, which is equivalent of the median income of residents in the host community; about $6,000 when they return to the United States.

• More information: peacecorps.gov or 800-424-8580

Return Peace Corps volunteer group

• What: North State Return Peace Corps Volunteers, which has 26 members

• When: Group gathers periodically to share Peace Corps experience. Members often bring dishes from their host countries.

• Information: Call Terry and Marilyn Thomas, 242-1132

Children ran, screaming, followed by women. Sword-wielding men rushed to investigate and defend their homes in a remote, Nigerien village. But sword rattles were replaced by laughter when the men saw the terror-inducing sight: Rick Ramos, accompanied by Nigerien men who wanted to help villagers battle the Guiena worm, a water-borne parasite that exits its host through blisters. It was part of Ramos' Peace Corps work in Niger.

"I went into villages where they'd never seen a white guy," Ramos said.

And in some of those villages, boogeyman stories included legends of child-eating white men, hence the run-for-the-hills fear factor, which melted into laughter when they came to know the Redding man.

Scary as some of those times were — Ramos grins when he recounts watching three men slay a cobra snake using only sticks — the experience was the dream of a lifetime, set into motion when President John F. Kennedy visited the dam dedication at Whiskeytown in September, 1963.

"I'd wanted to join the Peace Corps but it never worked out right," the 53-year-old Ramos said.

He and his wife of 35 years, Becky, had children to raise first. And when the last one left home, Ramos figured it was his turn to fulfill a dream that was never snuffed out. And Becky agreed to join him, if they were selected — although she bet against that, given their age.

But age worked for the Ramoses, who volunteered from 2003 to 2005. And a growing number of baby boomers are heeding their youthful yearnings to join and give back, now that their families are raised, financial obligations met and their health is good.

"No group of Americans has more skills and experience to share," said Nathan "Hale" Sargent, a San Francisco Peace Corps recruiter. Sargent noted the idealistic beginnings of the Boomers, who came of age when the Peace Corps started. And the generation's interest in their world, now coupled with a lifetime of experience.

Of the 7,749 Peace Corps volunteers worldwide, 382 are 50 or older. And while 20-something singletons make up the majority of volunteers, seven percent serve as married couples, according to Corps stats.

Older volunteers say their age is an asset. Villagers respect their age and wisdom. They're patient and more experienced, something that Marilyn Thomas, 64, notes when she contrasts her recent volunteer work in Kenya with the work she did in her 20s, when she was frustrated that Afghanistan village elders didn't listen to her.

Some 187,000 Americans have volunteered since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961 by John F. Kennedy. After a background check, volunteers are matched to a community that needs their expertise. They go to training, learn about their host country and community and agree to a two-year assignment.

But just getting to volunteer takes determination.

"The application to get in looked like the Sears Catalog," Ramos said.

It took the Ramoses 1½ years to get through the application process, which includes background and medical checks and a financial statement — to ensure bills are handled while abroad.

The process took about seven months for Terry and Marilyn Thomas of Redding, who served in the Peace Corps in Kenya from 2001 to 2003. It was a second stint for Marilyn, 64, who was a Corps volunteer in Afghanistan in the 1960s.

"We're kind of JFK children and have always been idealists," Marilyn Thomas said.

Both couples sold their homes and purged most of their belongings, downsizing to realize their dreams.

And both couples say, tough and uncomfortable as the experience was at times — mosquitoes nipping at skin, blistering heat that makes Redding look cool, and living without running water or electricity — they grew from it. And, working side-by-side, they grew together as couples.

The assignments were loose; volunteers are expected to work with their host community and figure out what they need, want and can be achieved with the resources on hand. It goes back to the adage of teaching a person to fish, rather than giving them a fish. Peace Corps volunteers wanted to help locals help themselves — with what's available — so locals can continue on, Terry Thomas said.

Both the Thomases and Ramoses said the literacy rate was low, so they read medicine bottle labels and other important documents to residents. They also educated people about HIV, parasites and crops. In the process they learned about their host country's culture and the social fabric that binds community together.

The couples also said they were touched by the generosity of local people, who insisted on cooking expansive meals — even when the locals lived in subsistence and themselves ate meagerly.

"The poorest people were the kindest, most giving people you've ever met," Terry Thomas said.

And while cultures and economic circumstances might be different from the American experience, the couples say they're still amazed at how similar we all are. Parents want their children to succeed and grief slices at hearts.

In Kenya, where the Thomases served, some 40 percent of residents have HIV. And when both parents die from the disease, children are left to raise themselves and their siblings, Marilyn Thomas said.

"So many nights, you'd go to bed and hear the wailing and chanting from the funerals," she said.

The human experience touched Becky Ramos, who said conversations sometimes turned to God and family. And in those conversations, both sides came to understand each other, she said.

"It's not the differences," Becky Ramos said. "It's the things we share in common."

That's an experience that Edward Martinez, 50, and Georgia Triplett, 58, are looking forward to. The Redding couple, both nurses, depart for the Eastern Caribbean on July 28. Martinez is loading up his iPod for the adventure and Triplett's packing books. But they've shed even more. The cars are sold, belongings given away and the rest is getting packed into storage while they look for a tenant to rent their Redding home during their two-year Peace Corps commitment.

The nursing couple said they're looking forward to their upcoming adventure — and to giving back.

"When you do things for people who don't have anything, when they show their gratitude, that's rewarding," Martinez said.

And Corps volunteers say the gratitude is just the beginning of a personal journey.

"I've always said we got more out of it then we gave, the personal changes that you go through, " Marilyn Thomas said.

Currents reporter Christy Lochrie can be reached at 225-8309 or clochrie@redding.com. Read her blog at blogs.redding.com.